I've heard many pitches and read many would-be blockbuster screenplays that have done this.

I think the biggest problem is what Blake Snyder calls Double Mumbo Jumbo. I don't call it that. I call it Suspension of Disbelief.

Any of those coincidental elements is enough to push very hard on whether or not I believe the events in the story.

1) a breakup over global warming?
2) A killer hurricane -- hitting Maine?
3) that awakens a dormant volcano?
4) On the eastern seaboard?
5) that sets off a biological weapon?

Pick one. Write the hell out of it.

The antithesis I also see a lot are scripts that are bland. The writers fearing the above often see Suspension of Disbelief as a bad thing.

The thing is -- we go to movies to have our disbelief suspended. Just not to have it beaten to a pulp with something that condescends to our intelligence.

A good script makes us believe the unbelievable. But don't abuse it!

James, good take. There's that big-ass word that comes to mind: verisimilitude. The story universe and scenario we create doesn't have to be real, but it does have to feel real. And by real, I mean that in a movie sense. Because you are quite right, James: people go to movies in part to be taken out of their 'normal' world and sucked into the world of the story. We have that good will available to us as screenwriters -- people want to read (or see) a good story. That gives us some latitude in creating a suspension of disbelief.

As you say: Make us believe the unbelievable.

Fun video, thanks for sharing. What a great story, and lucid fellow, bravo Leonard for developing such an entirely useful filtering device.

"Pick one. Write the hell out of it." That is damn beautiful, and true, and "write the hell out of it" is my new favorite phrase.

A hurricane setting off a volcano? That idea sounds like it was conceived by someone with an eight-year-old's understanding of meteorology and geology.

@Wolf Lahti: You just reminded me that I've yet to promote a Journal of Screenwriting book review I wrote and was recently published on "Hollywood Science." I'll do a post on that soon. Thanks!